Water and Wine
by TheJohnWayne
Summary: Kel involves herself in the life of another would-be knight and becomes entangled in the affairs of the Gods.
1. Chapter 1

Kel breathed out through her nose, put her left foot into the stirrup and mounted. The moment of change from the ground to the saddle always felt unreal to her, a transformation from human to superhuman as her knees gripped and her back straightened. She found the right stirrup with her foot and rose up in the saddle a moment before settling back to accept the lance that was offered to her. With a sharp nod of her head her helm's visor swung down over her face and the sound of her breathing filled her ears, her nostrils flaring slightly at the acidic smell of metal and polish.

Through the gap between helm and visor she could see her opponent at the far end of the tilting field, his young grey charger fidgeting and snorting puffs of mist into the early morning air. The stands were nearly empty and Kel couldn't blame people for staying away. A thin, icy rain had been falling since the evening before, so light that the softest breeze blew stinging drops sideways into your face. Wet and frustrated, her opponent's horse lost patience and gave a small, violent buck which his rider sat admirably, leaning down as far as his tilting saddle would allow to stroke the dappled-grey neck. Kel watched his mud-flecked cloak, striped in the black and bright green of Horsehead Spit, billow out in a small gust of wind. Underneath it Sir Isaac looked to be a smallish man wearing ill-fitting armour.

The trumpet sounded and Peachblossom leapt forward like a cat whose tail has been stepped on. The grey charger reared up at the sudden noise, then, with a shouted urging from his rider, raced along the lane to meet them. Both lances struck and Kel felt the judder of Sir Isaac's lance shattering against her shield, sending a jarring pain shooting through her shoulder. A wave of nausea roiled deep in her gut as she wheeled Peachblossom around and cantered him back to the end of her lane, lance intact. It had seemed like such a sure hit until her opponent had somehow jerked his shield down at the last second, baring himself from the collarbone up for a terrible moment of vulnerability before her lance hit the upper rim of his shield and scraped up and off, barely glancing his unprotected shoulder. It had been like missing a step on a dark staircase and Kel had been thrown wildly off-balance by it.

She shook her head now, trying to concentrate as they turned their horses to face one another again and the trumpet was blown. This time she kept her gaze locked onto the man's shield and when he feinted with it she levelled her lance and struck its centre clean and hard, throwing him back into the saddle and breaking her lance. In that exact instant of connection, Kel realised Sir Isaac's next trick just too late to avoid it as his lance hammered into her shield's bottom quadrant and thrust upwards with such force that the shield's top edge smashed into her face. Dropping the remnants of her lance, Kel halted Peachblossom in the middle of the tilting field and lifted her visor with a shaking hand to spit out a mouthful of blood and, to her horror, a back tooth. Blood was running out of her nose like twin springs. She explored the point of impact on her helmet with her free hand and squeezed her eyes shut when she felt the four-inch indentation in the metal.

Checking the straps on her shield arm as she rode slowly back to the starting end gave Kel time to catch her breath. One strap was broken but the other two would keep her shield on long enough for her to finish the joust. The monitor raised his eyebrows at her questioningly but she shook her head and lowered her visor, holding out her hand for a fresh lance. He gave it to her and she gathered her reins, thinking as quickly as her numb mind could. When the signal came she gave Peachblossom the order to charge and he obeyed, the faces in the stands blurring into damp smudges. Sir Isaac was unclouded, so clear in her vision that she could see every movement of muscle under his armour. There went his shield again, dropping down and to the right to avoid her lance point. She would not aim for his shield this time. An undefended shoulder was fair game and she was not feeling merciful.

Lance and plate armour met with a dull thud and a slight crunch and Sir Isaac flew from his saddle like someone had grabbed a handful of his cloak and yanked. His fall ended abruptly as his left foot caught in the stirrup and the grey charger continued its gallop down the tilting lane, dragging him behind. Men came sprinting onto the field to help him and the chief herald managed to cut the stallion off with his own horse. Sir Isaac was even smaller curled into a ball on the ground than she had thought him to be when she saw him before the joust. Kel dismounted, ducked under the dividing fence and ran over to where the healer was trying to get his helmet off. It was nearly half-way lifted when Sir Isaac came to life, seized the healer by the wrist with his good arm and thrust her away from him. Kel could hear how ragged his breathing was as he struggled to his feet but he shook off the herald and anyone else who tried to stop him, limping over to snatch his horse's reigns from the monitor who held them. Kel caught up to him and grabbed hold of his arm, "Let the healer look at you, Sir. If you are seriously injured I'll feel it on my conscience."

But the knight only wrenched his arm out of her grasp, mounted his horse with so much difficulty that it hurt her to watch him and trotted back down the field, clinging grimly to the saddle to keep himself mounted and upright. At the end of the tilting lane, a giant of a man dressed in heavy green brocade strode forward to take the horse by the bridle and lead it away. Kel saw the knight slump forward in his saddle, one hand buried in the horse's mane before the mist hid them from sight.


	2. Chapter 2

Lying on her back on a bale of hay, Kel let her eyes close and tried to relax all of the muscles in her face. The afternoon sunlight shone red through her eyelids and she had to rest the back of her hand over her eyes to be in darkness. She listened to the flies and the quiet movement of horses in their stalls while her face throbbed. Her nose was swollen and she could still taste blood in her mouth. She leant over the edge of the bale and spat onto the straw-strewn floor, knowing it would do little to improve anything. Lying back again made her feel dizzy and Kel gave a small groan. Jump whined at her from where he sat at the foot of the bale.

"It could be worse," Kel told him, "I could be Sir Isaac."

She folded her hands on her stomach and breathed deeply, allowing the sun to bathe her aching face like warm water. The hay beneath her stopped feeling prickly against her back and the gentle rise and fall of her stomach under her hands was soothing. She slipped into dreaming as easily as a seal slides into the shallows of a quiet sea.

_The heat on her face was not the sun but a large bonfire. She sat cross-legged in front of it under a night sky that blazed with foreign stars. Sand surrounded her like an ocean-less beach and she could make out the profiles of massive dunes far in the distance. The light cast by the fire made it seem like she was in a pool of tawny gold, the flames and the lit sand flickering in all different shades of red and dun. There was the faintest whisper of music, blown in by a soft breeze, which sounded to Kel like twanging wire and a slow drumbeat. It pleased and disturbed her, becoming louder and softer as the wind rose and fell. The fine hairs on her arms prickled. _

_Across from her, on the other side of the fire, sat a creature with its back to her. At first she thought it was some kind of an animal. She could hear a low crooning sound coming from it and there was something inhuman about its shape. It shifted to one side and Kel saw that it was a young man, bare-foot and wearing nothing but a loincloth under a heavy cloak of black fur. He was crouched over a sharp-faced dog, running his hands over its back and ribs as it lay on its side in the sand. A litter of soft, mewling puppies squirmed against its belly. _

_As Kel watched, the man moved his hand from the mother to her puppies, laying it on them one-by-one as if he was examining each of them in turn. At last his hand paused on one and he seized it roughly by the scruff, holding it up to the fire for Kel to see. It was pitch-black, so young that its eyes were still squeezed tightly shut against the light._

"_Prince of Teeth," said the man, in a voice that was startlingly deep, "Open your eyes."_

_The puppy's eyes flicked open and it looked at Kel through the flames. Its eyes were blue and not animal-like at all. When its mouth opened and it began to cry, its wails were those of a new-born baby. _

Kel woke to find a shadow falling over her face, blocking the sunlight. She sat up quickly and the boy who had been leaning over her jumped back, looking sheepish. He was four or five years younger than her, dressed in the scarlet and gold of a page. Kel squinted up at him, shading her eyes with her hand when he began to speak. He seemed flustered and a little upset, his voice breaking every now and then as if he felt like crying.

"I'm sorry, Squire, but I need to use the hay."

She gazed at him blankly for a moment with the soft resonance of strange music still in her ears, then realised what he wanted and got stiffly to her feet. The page waited until she had moved a few paces away before he approached the bale she had been lying on and began tugging handfuls of hay out of it. Kel watched him with bemusement then took a step back towards him.

"Do you… uh… need some help there?"

"No," He said, a little too quickly, then sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Kel came to stand beside him, wondering how best to help him. He was small for his age and not strong-looking, his hair sweaty and his chin shaking just a little. She considered asking him whether the other pages were being unkind but she thought better of it and said, "You want to feed your horse?"

"Yes," he glanced at her with embarrassed hostility, "You can go. I don't need help."

Kel shrugged, "I have nothing better to do. Here, I'll show you a trick."

She went over to the larger stack of bales at the end of the stable block, kicking aside the loose bits of straw on the ground until she found one of the long pieces of twine that had been cut from the bindings of another bale. When she came back with it the boy was still frowning but he did not tell her to go away. Kel slipped one end of the length of twine under the bale's own binding and pulled it until it was half-way under. Holding one end in each hand like reins, she began to saw with it, pulling back and forth as quickly as possible.

"The idea is to keep it moving on one particular spot," Kel said, seeing the boy watching her, "This piece of string wears away at the one binding the bale. The faster you go, the quicker the binding will give way." She put one foot against the bale and leant back, giving a few more hard tugs to either side before the binding broke. Satisfied, she dropped her piece and pulled the binding away.

"Will you fetch that pitchfork over there?"

The page found the fork leaning against a stall door and brought it to her without complaint. Kel took it and gave the bale a light kick. It collapsed into several pieces and she speared one with the fork. The boy led her down the row of stalls to the opposite end of the block, where many of the pages' horses were kept. There was no one with the horses now except the two of them. It was getting close to suppertime and the pages should have been finished with their duties in the stables long before. He stopped in front of the very last stall and opened the half-door so Kel could carry the hay to the manger at the back.

As she came into the stall Kel saw the boy's horse and paused, still hefting the pitchfork in front of her. He was a young grey stallion, his dappled coat freshly brushed and his ears pushed forward with interest. Kel stared at him, forehead wrinkling, until the boy asked her what the matter was. Then she filled the manger and came out again, giving the horse a hard pat and closing the stall door behind her.

"I could swear that I saw a knight riding that horse at the jousting this morning," she said, setting the pitchfork down against the far wall, "Do you know Sir Isaac of Horsehead Spit?

"He's my uncle," said the boy, "I'm Lord Spartak of Horsehead Spit. But I think you must be mistaken. Haven't you heard what they say about Sir Isaac?"

"What do they say?"

"They call him the Green Giant. He's too tall to ride Hammer."

Kel's frown deepened as she watched Spartak pass her, on his way to the pages' mess for his supper. Just as he was about to turn the corner, he hesitated and looked back at her over his shoulder.

"Thank you for helping me… " he stopped, uncertain about something, "Look… You helped me so I'll try and do the same. Go and see my uncle's blacksmith. He has a shop near the river."

Kel folded her arms over her chest and considered him, "Why do you think I need a blacksmith?"

"He'll do the work for free if you tell him you're a friend of mine." Spartak shrugged, "Go or don't go: it doesn't concern me. But that's what I'd do if I were you."

He turned and left, leaving Kel alone with the horses as the setting sun coloured the brick of the stable yard a golden shade of peach.


End file.
